


snow can melt the silence

by LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel Speaks Enochian, First Time, Human Castiel, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Castiel, Porn with Feelings, Sharing a Bed, more feelings than porn though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:17:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch/pseuds/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch
Summary: In the middle of a snowstorm, Cas and Dean have to find shelter in a small cabin. Spoiler: There is only one bed.





	snow can melt the silence

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a challenge, but wasn't sure about it and let it rot for while in my drafts. ~~I'm still not sure I like it, but since I don't get any other writing done, it might be better than nothing. Maybe.~~

 

The world is swirling white.

Time is reduced to the rhythm of the Impala’s wipers, a rhythmic screech that grinds on Cas’ nerves. When Cas looks over, Dean’s hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Dean’s jaw is clenched. He huffs with every bump in the road. To call it a road might be a stretch. It’s little more than a gravel path winding through an army of old firs.

A sign pointing to the lakeside cabins said _one mile_ , but it feels longer than that. Cas grips his thighs, stays silent, tries to make out the road in front of them. The lights cut two intersecting cones out of the dark, bleeding out at the edges, transforming the night beyond into something foreign and malevolent. The drive is endless, the progression slow due to the rocky underground and the fact that they can’t see anything that’s more than a few feet away.

When they finally reach their destination, the wooden cabin rises from the white chaos like a big animal. It’s crouched low beneath the tall trees. Cas sighs with relief and relaxes his hands. Dean cuts the engine and the wipers quit their busy work. Thick flakes take the chance to settle on the windshield and die on the warm glass.

The cabin is little more than a hut. Soft light illuminates old wood, cracked paint, a rocking chair on a small porch. It’s not much, but it will do.

They stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard. The old man at the gas station told them the tiny village had not motel, but gave them the keys to the cabin in exchange for a small bundle of money that Dean handed over reluctantly. Dean’s hands looked strong and capable against the wrinkled, gnarly fingers of the old man, and Cas had wondered if Dean’s hands would have the chance to age and wither with time, too.

Dean turns off the lights, swears softly. Cas wants to say something, but keeps silent. After all this time, he’s still unsure how to diffuse these moods in Dean and make him smile again. Sam knows how to say “Don’t be so dramatic, Dean” and “I’m sure it’s not _that_ bad”, knows how to grin in the face of Dean’s contempt and coax a reluctant smile out of his brother in return.

Cas, even after all those years, still knows so little.

It’s the first time he went on a longer hunt alone with Dean, on a case that took a two day drive to get to and turned out to be a “bust”.

He is out of his depth when he’s confronted with Dean’s sour silence. Reading social cues never has been easy, least of all with the human being he’s supposed to know best. Cas grips the door handle, clears his throat, says, “I’ll get the bags”, waits a second for Dean to say something, and when there’s more silence instead of an answer, he opens the door and faces the storm.

The wind tugs on his collar and whips thick cold flakes in his face. The chill creeps through his clothes down to his skin, fast, as if the storm has a mind of its own and attacks him with malicious intent. The cold is something new. He hadn’t known he’d hate it so much, before…

Cas runs to the back of the car and opens the trunk, grabs Dean’s duffel and his own, hefts them. He can barely make out Dean’s form by the cabin door as he sprints over, blinded by the snow. Dean fiddles with the key. His hands will be ice cold and clumsy just like Cas’. The door doesn’t move at first, but Dean gives it a shove, and they tumble inside, eager to get out of the cold.

It’s not much warmer inside, but at least there’s a barrier now against the claws of the icy wind. Dean crouches down to open his duffel and straightens again with a flashlight in his hand. The beam dances over the interior like a drunken fey before it steadies. It reveals a table, two chairs, an oven, a few cupboards, a bed. The light lingers on the last one. It’s a sturdy bedframe, made of rough wood, a thick mattress, a few pillows, blankets.

Dean sighs and directs the light back to the stove. Goes over and sinks to his knees to find kindling, matches, a few pieces of dry wood. Cas waits by the door while his gaze wanders back and forth between Dean’s broad back and the bed. He jumps when Dean speaks up without turning.

“Go check the cupboards. There have to be some sheets somewhere. And maybe a can of soup for dinner.”

His voice is hoarse, strained, not too kind. If Cas had to choose, he might prefer the silence to that note in Dean’s voice. It always makes him wonder if he did something wrong, but he doesn’t know what. He’d apologize or make up for it if he only knew. Cas takes his bag over to the table, sets it down carefully, and goes to inspect the contents of the cabinets.

He finds blankets, sheets and pillow cases in a drawer. A cupboard next to a small window reveals two cans of stew, plates and spoons. He sets the table first and hands the cans to Dean. Their finger brush lightly and Cas learns that, yes, Dean’s hands are still cold. Dean huffs a low sound and takes the can from him quickly to shorten the contact.

Cas carries the bedclothes to the other side of the room and makes the bed. The room fills with the scent of wood-smoke and the temperature rises quickly. His back warms up where his skin soaks in the heat the oven radiates, while his front is still cold, his fingers stiff. Over the howling of the storm outside can hear the wet sound when Dean empties the can into a pot, hears the clank of metal when he sets it on the stove, hears the creaking wood of the chair when Dean lowers himself into it.

Cas has to lean over the bed to adjust the sheet and tug it in at the corners. The fabric smells dusty but clean. Two pillows vanish in their cases. There’s no cover for the thick quilt that lay on the mattress so Cas spreads another sheet and then the quilt over the width of the bed. He doesn’t turn when he says, “I could sleep on the floor.”

Dean clears his throat. When he speaks, it sounds muffled as if he dropped his head into his hands. “Don’t be stupid,” is all he says.

Cas finishes making the bed. He wonders what it will be like to sleep next to Dean, finds his fingers fiddling with the fabric. Since he fell, he needs to sleep, but he doesn’t like it. The dreams are always the worst.

More than once, he dreamed of Dean. Dreams, he learned, are very different from memories. Everything is possible in them, but the plot is beyond his control. He dreams tangled stories full of mysterious events, new combinations of real experiences, sewn together like chimeras. More than once, he woke up panting as if he’d run for his life, body strung tight, remembering only flashes of images from his dream while his fingers grasped at nothing but empty air. He remembers the feeling of loss.

He knows Dean is uncomfortable with the situation. Dean values his personal space. Maybe spending two days in close proximity to Cas was already too much of a violation of his privacy. Dean had been quiet but in a good mood – until the storm hit and they had to find shelter.

The chair creaks again when Dean gets up. The smell of boiling food wafts over. “Dinner’s ready.”

They eat in silence. Cas would like to call it companionable, but it isn’t. The space between Dean and him feels crowded with unsaid things, and Cas has the suspicion that those unsaid things have nothing to do with the case or the weather. Those things are old, have grown for years. He can almost feel their edges and recognizes each and every one by the way they hurt.

They’ve lived in the silence between Dean and him for a long time.

Dean’s spoon is loud where he scrapes it against the plate to get the last drops of his food.

Cas’ stomach is in knots. He isn’t hungry, but he knows he has to eat, so eat he does. Cas has to sleep, he has to eat, he has to endure the unreadable silences as well as the cold, has to endure the yearning for something he can’t quite name. Maybe that’s what being human is all about. The room is stifling hot now. Dean’s knuckles are still white.

“Dean,” he starts, but Dean shakes his head.

“I’m beat,” he says and gets up. He opens his duffel, takes out his toothbrush and a bottle of water, goes over to the sink – a bowl, really – and brushes his teeth, back to Cas. His shoulders look smaller this way, hunched as if he’s waiting for a blow. Dean spits out the toothpaste and rinses. The smell of stew and mildew and smoke gets pinched with the sharp scent of mint. Cas breathes slowly through his nose, tries to discern the layers of scents to calm his mind.

Dean shuffles over to the bed. Loses his boots and his jeans, keeps his socks, boxer briefs, t-shirt. Lifts the sheet and blanket and crawls under them. Cas sits through it all and wonders why the mood has shifted so profoundly. He knows the bed makes Dean nervous, but what’s more disturbing is that it makes Cas nervous. A few years ago, before the silent things had grown, he would have shrugged it off. It was a purely practical decision to share a bed, to make the most efficient use of their body heat. Now he eyes the bedframe like it’s an unconscious demon. Not a threat right now, but a threat all the same.

He moves his shoulders to ease the strain that creeps up his neck. He repeats Dean’s motions, retraces his steps, brushes his teeth, steps out of his shoes and his pants, lifts the covers. He lies down carefully, two inches between Dean’s body and his own. The bedframe creaks and sighs with his movements.

A lump in the mattress digs into his lower back.

He turns off the flashlight he had carried with him. The dark looms over him, oblivious to Cas’ uneasyness. He closes his eyes. They had a long day. There’s no immediate threat here, he tells himself, but his teeth are hurting from biting down too hard as if there was. He listens to the wind raging and Dean’s uneven breathing next to him. Even though a few inches separate them, Cas left side warms up quicker than his right from Dean’s body heat. Dean lies perfectly still but Cas can tell he’s not asleep yet.

“I’m sorry we have to share a bed,” Cas whispers. “I know how much you dislike prolonged physical closeness.”

Dean huffs, almost a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. The sheets rustle when he settles for a new position. Cas tries to discern it.

“I…,” Dean starts, but falls quiet again. “It doesn’t matter. Good night, Cas.”

“Good night, Dean.”

Cas has learned to sleep with the thread of something unknown lurking in the darkness a while ago. He falls asleep.

 

///

 

It’s still dark when Cas awakes, though not as dark as before. The first thing he recognizes is the silence. The storm has passed and the cabin is wrapped in cotton quiet.

The second thing he realizes is the heat against his back, the broad warm palm on his stomach. He takes a careful breath and tries to make sense of the situation, assemble all the details into a picture that makes sense, but there’s no sense to be found with all his senses overridden at once.

Dean’s little finger is pressed to the edge of the waistband of his boxer shorts. Cas can feel the space where the pad stops touching his skin and starts touching the fabric. It’s a clear demarcation line between the two, touch and not-quite-touch.

Dean’s breath is wet against his neck.

Cold on the inhale.

Hot on the exhale.

Cold.

Hot.

Cold.

Hot.

Cas tries to adjust his breathing to keep it in synch with Dean’s but he can’t get enough oxygen, has to take extra gulps in between, has to fight to keep them shallow to not disturb the arrangement of their limbs.

Dean moves slightly. Moves his hips, presses closer to Cas. There’s two layers of fabric between their lower bodies, one black, on white, and they separate the unmistakable outline of Dean’s erection from Cas’ backside, and that, oh…

His breath stumbles again. The knot in his stomach is back, a low ache, and he’s known that ache before but never quite like this. He tells himself that Dean is experiencing an _unconscious bodily reaction_ , he screams it at the top of his lungs, _brought on by physical contact_ , but his own body does not care about his frantic reasoning. He feels himself swelling against the confines of his underwear.

The warmth in his belly sinks lower and spreads.

Against his will; he does not will his body to, he does not, – and isn’t this the most annoying thing about being human, to be a slave to his body’s wants and needs: nutrition, sleep, hydration, – isn’t this even more annoying when he knows the sudden hunger is more than a physical need, his need for Dean is so much more – his hips move infinitesimally, back into the hardness of Dean’s body, into his heat, and he lets his mind wander, just for a moment, lets it paint a picture where this situation unfolds, gathers momentum, explodes.

Dean presses closer. Sighs against Cas’ neck. He’s still asleep, Cas thinks, he’s still asleep. Cas bites his bottom lip, forces his lungs to keep up their work as steady as possible until they burn. Cas nudges back again to feel Dean thick and hot, only one more time. He gasps when the motion causes Dean’s hand to glide a little lower, just a fraction, and Dean’s little finger now rests against the tip of Cas’ erection, feather-light and without intent. It steals the breath out of his burning lungs all the same. Cas’ skin is too tight. Sweat breaks out on his neck, his forehead, under his arms, between his thighs.

He’s so focused on his own breathing, the sheer amount of concentration it takes to inhale, exhale, gather oxygen – a task that requires no thinking at all when Dean’s body is not this close to him … that it takes a minute or two for him to realize that Dean’s breath doesn’t flow steady anymore.

The _hot_ , _cold_ on his neck lost its rhythm.

Becomes a little louder.

Dean isn’t breathing through his nose but through his open mouth. Cas sees it in his mind, the parted lips, shining with saliva, that darkness behind them where his tongue lays surrounded by his teeth. The hand on Cas’ stomach moves, the fingers stretch until they make contact with his hardness.

A small pitiable sound falls from Cas’ lips. Every nerve in his body feels raw and Cas is shocked how vulnerable it makes him feel, to want so desperately while the focal point of this want is still so unclear. Dean’s next breath is different; in it is a roughness that wasn’t there before. The hand wanders again, with determination this time, lifts and lowers itself until it’s covering Cas where he wants to be touched more than anything. This much he knows. He wants Dean to touch him. That first contact is divine. He does not use that term loosely. Cas moans.

“Shhh,” Dean murmurs. “Tell me you’re awake, Cas. Tell me you want this,” he rasps against Cas’ neck and makes him shiver.

“Yes.” Cas’ tongue is swollen and he wants to say more, but he doesn’t know how, what to say, so he moves his hips again, rolls them back and forth between the heat of Dean’s cock and the heat of Dean’s hand. It’s unclear what he craves more: The fulfillment of his own need or proof of Dean’s.

“Fuck,” Dean grunts and then, finally, curls his fingers, fits them around Cas, tugs, says, “fuck” again, and Cas commits the sound of that to memory, because he finds he loves the sound of Dean’s control snapping. This voice is rough too, but Cas doesn’t mind. The roughness is not anger although it sounds a bit like it. Then Dean’s hand is gone and touches his stomach and slips under the waistband. And yes, this is much better, to feel Dean’s calloused skin right against his own. He needs more of that contact. He reaches back and shoves down his boxers, finds the edge of Dean’s underwear and tugs it down too.

Dean curses but lifts his hips so Cas can push the fabric away. The air is filled with rapid breathing, the creaking of the bedframe, the rustling of the sheets. Tentative sunlight filters through the dirty windows and Cas lifts the blanket to look down at where Dean’s thick fingers circle him, Dean’s thumb curled possessively over the head, spreading wetness. It’s a crude picture, flesh against flesh, but seeing their skin combined makes lust surge even stronger through his veins. His cock looks swollen under Dean’s hands.

A cold draft takes away the warmth and Cas lets the blanket fall down again already regretting that he can’t keep watching. The fresh air does nothing to cool Cas’ skin, only highlights the points where Dean’s heat meets his own.

Dean rolls his lower body against him in long waves, an imitation of more carnal acts, while he strokes Cas with a loose fist. They still haven’t looked at each other and Cas closes his eyes tightly against the sudden urge to turn and confront Dean’s gaze. Pleasure is pulsing through him, in his throat and in his gut, his own blood loud in this ears, a storm all of its own. Dean’s cock is slippery against his cheeks, his movements more deliberate now, his breathing ragged.

“Dreamed about this,” Dean whispers, as he slips between Cas’ closed thighs, painting the insides with his rising desire, makes Cas slicker where he’s already slick with sweat. It punches moans out of both of them. Cas presses his thighs closer together to add to Dean’s pleasure, moves his hips up and forward for his own, into the circle of Dean’s fist.

“I didn’t know.” Cas swallows. He didn’t know Dean wanted this. He didn’t know how much he himself wanted this. He didn’t know anyone could want that much and not die from it.

They rock together harder, faster, uncoordinated. There are laws in heaven against this, he thinks as Dean pumps between his thighs, and rightfully so. Cas, when he fell, didn’t know he fell for this, but he did, in a way, would again for the exquisite torture of it all, Dean’s earthy smell, his grunts and groans, the thunder of Dean’s heartbeat against Cas’ back.

“Dean,” he gasps, prays and demands.

Dean bites down into Cas’ flesh where his shoulder meets his neck. His body shakes and shudders. Pure wet heat spills between Cas’ legs, coats his skin, and Dean’s hand stills with him. Cas is not done yet, every single nerve of him strung tight, urging him to move, do something about the suffocating need, about that ache deep inside him.

Cas turns in Dean’s arms and pushes himself up, frenzied. He straddles Dean’s hips and moans when wetness trickles down between his thighs and coats more of his skin with Dean’s release. He fists his hands in Dean’s hair, surges down, captures his lips.

Dean is soft and pliant under him and opens up to let Cas’ tongue enter him. Cas fishes for Dean’s hand, the one that feel to the side, lost its grip. He wraps it around his cock, wraps his own hand around it, squeezes tight.

“Dean,” he says again, right into the dark cavern of Dean’s mouth that he can finally, finally taste, and presses in again, tastes and licks deep while he sets a fast pace with his hand. Dean moans, encourages him on with small bites.

Want.

Need.

Love.

Such small and frail and human words. Their letters can’t contain, can’t possibly convey what Cas is feeling. What binds him to Dean is vaster than the ocean.

He presses his forehead to Dean’s, catches his gaze. Dean turns his head and closes his eyes, and Cas can feel the unsaid things gathering behind Dean’s eyelids. He tugs hard on Dean’s hair, knows it must sting. He doesn’t care. Dean is not allowed to retreat now, for they both are guilty to let the silence linger for too long. Dean submits, finds his eyes again, lets him _see_.

Cas says them then, the unsaid things, groans them all into Dean’s open mouth. He breathes them into Dean’s soul while he fucks into their interwoven hands.

Dean stares, wide-eyed, and listens to the foreign words. The pressure builds inside Cas, shivers through his veins and tightens his muscles. His cock slips through the tightness, almost painful now, not enough. Dean reaches up with his free hand and strokes his thumb against the corner of Cas’ mouth while Cas’ lips move with his confession.

Cas can feel it now, how the shards lose their cutting edges and leave the air between them clearer with every word that tumbles from his panting lips, words that drop like honey down on Dean.

Sunlight bursts into the space between their trembling bodies. Cas rocks forward once, twice and allows the tensed coil to snap, for the first time in his existence he _is_ his body, completely and undeniably _right here_ , and his desire spills onto Dean’s skin in bursts.

Dean’s eyes are on him while Cas is wrecked by his release. His thumb still moves over Cas’ face, absentminded, as if sight is not enough to commit it all to memory.

Cas’ erection softens in the warm, wet circle of their hands. Dean doesn’t tug his hand back, cradles Cas in his palm as he sits up and slings his other arm around him, fits his forehead into the dip in Cas’ shoulder. They hold each other. They hold each other tight, and Cas thinks this is what he was made to do.

He is a snowflake. He tumbled down from heaven, all the long way down, only to melt against Dean’s heat, to become something other, something new. Cas is no longer part of the sky, he is part of the earth.

It’s _right_ like nothing else was ever right before, to hold Dean in his arms and be held by him in return, in a little cabin in the woods, with the traces of their lust coating their bodies and their heartbeats thumping the same beat against each other’s chests.

 

///

 

The tip of his nose is cold, but his body is warm and cozy next to Dean’s. They will have to get up eventually. Dean’s hands draw lazy patterns on Cas’ back. He could fall asleep again like this. Sleeping doesn’t feel like such a burden anymore if he can do it next to Dean.

“We have to go,” Dean murmurs in a hoarse voice.

Cas looks up to find his gaze. A slight flush still covers Dean’s cheeks and the contrast brings out his freckles. Cas traces the pattern next to his nose with a fingertip.

“You are not angry anymore.” Cas sorts through his thoughts to find the right words. “Yesterday…”

Dean rubs a palm over his face, over his lips and his chin, makes a frustrated sound in his throat. “Look, Cas. This? Wasn’t supposed to happen. We … we shouldn’t get involved like this.”

He doesn’t meet Cas’ eyes when he says it, and Cas’ stomach flips unpleasantly when the words register. Cas can’t for the life of him find a single thing wrong with what they just shared.

“Do you regret it?” he asks, and he wishes his voice sounded stronger, would carry the rightful indignation he feels along with the sadness and the hurt.

“No,” Dean says, softly. Then stronger, “No. Do you know why I was tense yesterday? Because there were two possible outcomes of us sharing a bed. We could have shared and nothing would have happened and we would have gone home and nothing would have changed.”

Cas doesn’t understand. “And that would have been good?”

“No, Cas. I would have wondered what if… I would have known how you look in your sleep, what it feels like to wake up next to you, and to know that and never have it again…” Dean takes a deep breath, but it’s shaky. “And now this happened. We are hunters, Cas. You are not an angel anymore. We can’t do this, I… I can’t lose you.”

Cas watches Dean closely as he thinks about it. “I haven’t been human very long, so maybe I don’t fully understand. You wanted this to happen?”

“Yes,” Dean says, and the blush that lessened over the last minutes creeps back, but he faces Cas with wide and honest eyes.

“And you don’t regret that we had sex?”

“No.”

“But we can’t have it again because you are afraid that I could die?”

Dean’s answer is less sure now, but he murmurs, “Yes.”

“That…” Cas inhales and shakes his head. “That’s stupid.” Their legs are tangled and his neck gets cold where the air meets his skin. He looks over to see his rumpled t-shirt they used to clean up and tossed to the side.

Sure, being intimate had shifted something in their relationship, for the better, he is sure. But … “The idea that losing you would somehow more … bearable if we’d never … that’s stupid. And if I would lose you one day, I would prefer to know I had made the best out of our time together.”

A small and trembling smile forms at the corner of Dean’s lips. “When you say it like that… So you think I’m stupid? Great start for a relationship.”

“I didn’t say you are stupid, just that your arguments are,” Cas grumbles but he can’t help smiling back.

“So how do we do this?”

“We’ll make it up as we go, like we always do.” He leans in carefully and watches as Dean’s eyes trail down to Cas’ mouth. His lips tingle where Dean’s gaze lands. They meet for the brief softness of a kiss that is a means to its own end.

“I have loved you for a very long time,” Dean murmurs.

Cas answers with the single truth he is still sure about, a fact that will remain if the world crumbles. He forms the words against Dean’s lips and this time, he speaks them in a language Dean understands.

“I will love you forever.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [procasdeanating](https://procasdeanating.tumblr.com) on tumblr. Come say hi!


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